Why Democrats and Republicans Don't Listen to Each Other
Why do 43 percent of Republicans think climate change is a hoax while 95 percent of Democrats think it is not? Why do 83 percent of Democrats disapprove of Republican tax plans while 79 percent of Republicans like them? Why are some convinced that much news is fake, while others cannot understand why logical minds reject objective evidence? Why can't we hear each other across the political divide?
If our political positions were purely logical, we should expect a much less extreme partisanship. So there must be something going on below the level of reason and conscious awareness. There is.
In 1951, psychologist Solomon Asch put eight participants in a room and asked them to pick from a choice of three lines the one whose length matched a given line. Unknown to the test subject, the other seven participants were confederates of Asch. They chose first, and all picked the same wrong line. What would the test subject do when confronted by the unanimous (yet erroneous) consensus of others? In 37 percent of the trials, participants conformed to the majority's incorrect judgment. Debriefed about why, many participants blamed themselves (e.g. poor perceptual ability) rather than the pressure of others. The power to conform to the opinion of the groups to which we belong is strong. Partisan groups expect such loyalty - and usually get it.
But what drives such loyalty? Neuroscientist Naomi Eisenberger, used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to see what parts of the brain are engaged when we confront physical and also social pain. It turns out that the same neural structures are involved when we suffer tissue damage, for example, as when we feel socially isolated from a group. In short, ostracism is painful. So whether it is a heart attack or a "broken heart," our brains respond similarly. In regard to partisan groups, avoiding the pain of being shunned matters. We all want to be accepted.
Micah Edelson, Yadin Dudai and Tali Sharot showed a 45-minute documentary film to groups of five participants. Afterwards, everyone completed a test about what they had seen (e.g. what color dress was a woman wearing?). After a few days, each participant took the test again under an fMRI scanner. But first they were shown the answers of the other four, some of which were deliberately false. About 70 percent of the time, the participant now agreed with the wrong answers. So far, this sounds like the Asch experiment, but here's the twist. The participant was then asked to take the test a third time, relying only on personal memory. In half the cases, participants believed the wrong answers were really their own - and denied being influenced by the four others. The fMRI scanner revealed that the amygdala, a brain region critical to emotions and forming social networks, lit up when the subject learned of others' answers, as did the hippocampus, which is where the brain forms and stores memories. The false answers became the subject's own memories. To maintain our social network, we can accept lies as the truth and remain unaware we have done so.
All of this goes on without our conscious awareness. We don't think we are conforming to the false opinion of others. We don't see ourselves acting to avoid the social pain of ostracism from our partisan group. We insist we're rational. It is others that are driven by emotional forces that defy logic. We can see the fault in their thinking but not in our own.
Psychology and neuroscience are at the heart of our partisan politics. But why? Most likely, there was an evolutionary advantage to forming a cohesive group of "us" against "them." Perhaps we enjoy the rush of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with the reward and pleasure that comes from being confirmed in our beliefs by our political friends. It just feels good to be around people "like us." Indeed, Bill Bishop has argued in The Big Sort that we increasingly move to places where we can find politically compatible friends, perhaps a reason that Congressional districts are becoming less and less competitive.
What we are biologically and psychologically designed to do, however, need not be what we are destined to do. Individuals and societies can choose to change, else we would never have consigned racist, sexist, and religious extremism to the fringes of society. The start of that choice requires humility. We must accept that we are flawed and be open to understanding how. The path down that road also requires moral courage, which is not likely to come from those politicians and pundits who have too much to gain by dividing us.
Photo Credit: sarcasmo
